Further Personal Information

Sport Specific Information

When and where did you begin this sport?

Her mother, a former artistic swimmer, taught her to swim as a baby in Africa. After she moved to Australia, she joined a local swimming club in Brisbane, Queensland. At age 15, she decided to take the sport more seriously with the aim of making the Olympic Games.

Why this sport?

"My little recipe for success is to find something that you’re good at and you enjoy, and I guess that I just kind of fell into swimming in that way – I enjoyed it and I was pretty good at it. The more I did it, the more I enjoyed it, and the better I got, therefore the more I enjoyed it – and it just went in that cycle."

Name of coach

Simon Cusack [personal]; Jacco Verhaeren [national], NED

Training Regime

She trains at the New South Wales Institute of Sport [NSWIS] in Sydney, Australia.

She was forced out of the 100m freestyle event at the 2012 Olympic Games in London due to gastroenteritis. However, she recovered in time to compete in the 50m freestyle event. (swimmingworldmagazine.com, 01 May 2013)

She had glandular fever and then chronic fatigue syndrome after the 2008 Olympic Games and was out of action for two years. (smh.com.au, 10 Apr 2012)

She tore cartilage in her right hip joint playing handball in 2004 and two years later it required surgery that restricted her in training. (NOC, 14 May 2008)

She was named Sportswoman of the Year at the 2018 Australia Woman in Sports Awards. She also won the Comeback of the Year Award after having a break from the sport after the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. (swimswam.com, 17 Oct 2018; swimmingworldmagazine.com, 17 Oct 2018)

In 2016 she received a Patron Award at the Swimming Australia gala awards night. (ginarinehart.com.au, 06 Nov 2016)

She was inducted into the Australian Path of Champions in 2014. The Path of Champions recognises the achievements of Australia's top athletes. (swimswam.com, 21 Oct 2014)

She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia [OAM] in the 2014 Australia Day Honours list. Her fellow 4x100m gold medallists from the 2012 Olympic Games in London also received the honour. (insidethegames.biz, 26 Jan 2014)

In 2013 and 2014 she was named both Australian Swimmer of the Year and won the Australian Swimmer's Swimmer Award. (swimmingworldmagazine.com, 02 Feb 2014; swimswam.com, 22 Dec 2014)

Famous relatives

Her sister Bronte has also represented Australia in swimming, and won gold in the 100m freestyle at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. (smh.com.au, 10 Apr 2018)

Ambitions

To compete at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. (smh.com.au, 18 Jul 2017)

Other information

PASSION REDISCOVEREDShe took a break from swimming following the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where she failed to win a medal in the 50m and 100m freestyle. "It hurt me deeply in the way that if you are in a relationship with someone. Swimming let me down. It's strange, because it was 100% me [at fault] and I was in control, but I felt like I had given so much of myself to this thing and it had just really let me down and I was feeling really hurt by it." In September 2017 she returned to full-time training having rediscovered her passion for the sport. "For a while there, I didn't want to be number one in the world. And that was the first time in my career or life that I didn't really care about being at the top. It was an uncomfortable situation to find myself in because I was trying to work out what that meant. In the end, it was just a priority shift, not a complete 180 [degree change]. I saw that life does exist after sport. But I've come back to the fact that I still want to be better. I don't want to give it away and I'm willing to do what it takes to get back to my best." (smh.com.au, 23 Oct 2017; swimswam.com, 23 Jul 2017; sbs.com.au, 24 Jul 2017)

SISTER ACTShe and her younger sister Bronte both qualified for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. They were the first siblings to represent Australia in swimming in the same Olympic team since 1972. Bronte produced a shock by beating Cate to gold in the 100m freestyle at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. (theaustralian.com.au, 16 Jul 2012; olympics.com.au, 16 Jul 2012; goldcoastbulletin.com.au, 09 Apr 2018)

FROM MALAWI TO AUSTRALIABorn in Malawi where her father, Eric, originally from South Africa, was working for a bank, she moved with her family to Australia at age nine. (smh.com.au, 08 Apr 2012)

MANDATORY SWIMMINGShe supports The Courier Mail's campaign for swimming lessons to be made compulsory in Queensland schools. "I think the campaign is such a great idea. We're in a country surrounded by water and just look at the Australia Day weekend where maybe 90 per cent of us spent it by the pool, or the beach or the river." (frasercoastchronicle.com.au, 31 Jan 2018)